Sunday 4 September 2011 15.00 EDT
First published on Sunday 4 September 2011 15.00 EDT

Fresh from the success of his vampire romance Let the Right One In, Swedish director Tomas Alfredson found himself deluged with offers to direct another horror movie. This frustrated him for two reasons. One, because most of the films sounded horrific for all the wrong reasons ("Rabid Zombie Gorillas 4 and stuff like that") and two, because he'd never considered Let the Right One In to be a horror movie anyway.

Happily, Alfredson has now come in from the the cold, directing an adaptation of John Le Carré's twisting, turning Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy for British production house Working Title. Like his previous film, it's a study of people who live in the shadows and depend on one another for survival, although in this case they are spies, not bloodsuckers. If advance word is to be believed, Alfredson's version (starring Gary Oldman, Colin Firth and Benedict Cumberbatch) may even erase memories of the classic 1979 TV series with Alec Guinness as George Smiley.

Le Carré one quipped that turning his books into films was akin to turning a cow into an Oxo-cube. With Tinker, the film-makers faced arguably the biggest bovine of them all. "We agreed that this was probably a totally impossible book to turn into a film," Alfredson admits, recalling his first meeting with the producers. "That it was almost blasphemous to introduce anyone other than Alec Guinness as George Smiley, and that it might as well be a confused Swedish non-horror director who would go out and explore this strange idea."

Certainly Alfredson has taken a route to the top. He has worked in kids' TV, joined a comedy troupe and shot a bawdy mockumentary (Screwed in Tallinn) about bachelors in search of Estonian girlfriends. Now, in his mid-40s, he is out of Sweden and struggling to adapt to a new country, a new language and the intricate protocol of Le Carré's world.

Yes, he says, it has been hard. "There's only one way to get through it and that's to be totally open about your ignorance. Everyone's been really helpful, patient and understanding. But sometimes you have to accept being addressed as if you're half-deaf."

Today's big premiere at Venice is the John le Carré adaptation Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, starring Gary Oldman. It may or may not win the Golden Lion, but our man on the Lido, Xan Brooks, definitely likes it